Hi! I have a 2001 Honda Prelude, with a blue top swap. We recently swapped over a new timing belt kit onto it, h22a4 kit. Once we had it all in, the belt sat veryyyy close to the engine, just about touching, like a papers thickness away. We tore it all apart, and everything is there, the appropriate washers etc. Nothing looks bent, everything should be basically new as I bought a complete gates timing belt kit. Note, it’s using the new auto tensioner from the kit as Iam waiting for the kstuned manual tensioner to come in, so it shouldn’t be a tension issue as it feels fine when in.

I am stumped right now, if anyone could help that’d be great, thanks.

 

I'm not familiar with the H series but every Honda motor with timing belt I've seen have large guide washers on the crank gear. One behind and one in front of the belt. Without those, the belt will move. With them, it keeps it just barely away from the block and head.

 

Check if you are not missing the nr 18 part on below picture:


With auto tensioner there is a problem that the belt is moving AWAY from the block due to lose on the sleeve that the tensioner is located.
How the belt is located on the camshaft gears?
If this problem was not existing before then maybe some component that you have replaced is bad from the factory.

 

Seeing the diagram, it's interesting the rear washer is on the crank and the front washer is built into the exiting camshaft gear by the looks.

 

On a 2001 USDM Prelude, the part number in question would actually be #24 instead of the combination of #'s 17 and 18 in the diagram above.

 

It is balancer shaft gear but yes. This is how Honda roll

 

PotAto, Potato.

That is what I've always known as the crank shaft snout, so learned it as the crank shaft gear. The harmonic balancer (which on most Honda's it's not) rides on the crank shaft snout and doesn't need a gear. And the reason I say it's not a harmonic balancer typically is Honda engines are usually internally balanced, not externally like some domestics etc. So for Honda it's a Crank Pulley instead of a balancer.



Let the debate begin.

Oh btw, I was speaking about part 17 and 18 in the diagram or part 24 in JRCivic1's mention. Maybe you are talking about part 16? And does the timing belt even ride on part 16?

 

The timing belt rides on part #24... the balance shaft belt rides on part #16. Part number 17 and 18 are where the timing belt runs on a '92-95 Prelude.

 

Yes, i was talking about that. There is no washer in front of the belt. Belt should not touch that part 16.
And you are right, Honda cranks are internally balanced for primary balance and not for secondary balance. That is why H22 have two additional shafts (parts 12 and 13) that help with the secondary balance and the 16 pulley is for that shafts.

 

Tomcat - look up a picture of the front of an H-series or F-series engine - there are two "timing belts" - one big one (what you're used to seeing) to drive the cam gear(s), and one small one to drive the balance shafts...what you're probably calling cam shafts from the diagram above.

 

yup! It’s on, it has to be for the sensor to work. Sooooo just to clarify, we swapped to a new h22a4 water pump, crank gear + pulley, new auto tensioner (will be manual soon ) h22a4 gears but that doesn’t matter. Iam thinking it almost might be a belt issue as the one we’re using isn’t oem, since they didn’t have the one I wanted at the time...could a belt with the wrong length cause this?


we torqued everything to spec as well. Nothing is bent/wobbling. All I can believe is that it’s tensioner or belt related. Also I was told could be a warp somewhere cam gear related...except for it had no issues before I bought the engine from a reputable source. Engine was test driven and compression tested etc, no issues.

 

I suppose the belt could be the problem, however, in my experience the culprit causing mis-alignment is the auto tensioner pulley/bracket and in some cases, the upper indexing bolt, which causes the pulley bracket to be bowed or angled. Check that.

 

awesome! We will check it out. I can’t think of any other thing being the issue, as I didn’t have this issue last time we did the timing belt. Has to be timing belt or tensioner related

 

checked it, nothing looked off. Got a new oem belt, still the same, torqued everything to spec once again, no avail. Iam losing my mind

 

Does the belt walk back towards the engine when you spin it, or are you saying that when you put it on, it's only able to go on super close to the engine?

 

 

when we put it on, it’s only able to go super close

 

any idea? We’ve givin up trying anything, as I believe everythin looks properly swapped. Taking it to a shop to put in a manual tensioner

 

Sorry for the delayed response. Only things I can think of that would cause it:

• No thrust bearings installed and the crank is pulled back towards the back of the engine
• Missing the guide plate behind the crank's timing sprocket
• Wrong crank
• Something allowing the crank's timing sprocket to sit further back on the crank than it should

 

Go back to the basics. With the belt on, is the water pump the only one that doesn't ride the full width of the belt (as your pic shows)?

With the belts off, are all of the pulleys in the same plane? As in, when you look down from the top of the engine, are the pulley faces closest to the driver's side all in a straight line?

What other parts did you remove while you were in there? Obviously it was all good before you started, right?

I stared at the parts fiche for five minutes just now and I can't figure out what could be missing or installed backwards to cause that much misalignment.

I don't think it's possible to mix these up, but are you positive that's a P13 water pump?

 

no problem.

yea, everything is aligned, while looking downward.

Everything we swapped is from a gates timing belt kit, which is for the h22a4. We swapped over cam gears (didn’t make a difference) crank pulley/crank gear (for the sensor to work) water pump, h22a4 auto tensioner from kit, h22a4 oem belt.

Nothing wobbles, nothing squeaks.

prior to this, we had a manual tensioner that failed, belt didn’t walk off all the way mind you. But it makes me believe that it’s a tensioner issue, as it didn’t sit like this with the manual, only with this automatic tensioner, even though it’s brand new